Twisted Games
by Detonare
Summary: When I wake up again, thinking that you are dead because of me, I will only be disappointed to find out that you're not! Fanfiction Contest Round 5 - Rivalshipping


**A/N:** Oh my god! I am so sorry, this is pretty long. The idea demanded a really long setting, and .. I loved the idea! I know you will find it interesting, I know I know I know!!! Especially because a certain psycho and his fellow freak are in this thing too... I love this story; absolutely love it! It was worth the hours I spend writing it. The idea is crazy, twisted.. awkward.. scary..

A certain scene can seem quite .. descriptive and.. graphic. But not TOO graphic, I think you can handle it for sure. Of course you can handle it! I just wanted to tell this, since it's probably not too fitting for minor children.

**YuGiOh Fanfiction Contest - Round 5  
Pairing: Yuugi Motou X Seto Kaiba**

* * *

**Twisted Games**

"Welcome," a voice greeted him as he opened his eyes. His short and brown hair was hanging down in front of them, making it hard to focus.

"Where am I?"

He sounded confused.. annoyed somehow. All the work he had resting on his shoulder was slowly weighing him down, and the pressure was starting to get to him. The last thing he wanted, was for someone to keep him from sleeping at night. So many things were doing that already.

"Somewhere between life and death," the voice answered, amused by the look on his guest's face. "So, shall we start now? Or do you want a cup of tea first? The rules will be explained as we start."

Kaiba couldn't see anything. It was completely dark around him. All he could, was to hear the sound of the voice, which he seemed to recognize from somewhere. Suddenly, a small glimpse of light was cast from a non existing ceiling. A white male was standing with his arms open in a welcoming gesture. He smiled, but the smile was anything but pleasant.

He had seen that man before.. Who was he?

When Kaiba regained his usual great sight along with his confidence, he snarled: "Which rules? Rules for what?"

The male with the shoulder long white hair chuckled slightly, making Kaiba even more confused. He tried his best not to let any emotion show, and he was very successful about doing so.

"The rules of the game, of course."

Kaiba crossed his arms across his chest, silently waiting for another explanation. Sadly, he didn't get what he wanted. Suddenly, the whole place was bathed in shining bright light, which made Kaiba almost jump from surprise. He could see the silhouettes of silent people sitting on chairs five meters away from him. They were waiting in anticipation.

"Welcome everybody!" the white male shouted across the large stage, making the watchers cheer excitedly. "My name is Bakura, and I will be your host!"

_Bakura.. _Immediately he recognized the man. Bakura..

"Hurry up!" a man from the audience shouted over the crowd.

"Get going!"

"Start already!"

People were starting to sound rather annoyed and irritable as more and more of them felt like they had to utter a word or two. Bakura didn't seem happy about it the least. His brown eyes were glowing with anger.

"Do you care to repeat that, or should I get someone to get you? You know how I work!" he threatened angrily. As the sound of Bakura's voice echoed through the empty place, utter silence filled the room. "I could get you myself too, if you feel like it!"

"Sorry," a shy voice emerged from the crowd and Bakura's smile grew bigger.

"Good. Now, lets play.."

Kaiba was standing with his back to the audience, looking at Bakura who looked back at him with a little white sparkle of amusement in his eyes. "Hangman!"

The audience cheered almost as much as before. The sound was so awful, echoing through the place. Kaiba's eardrums were on the verge of exploding.

"I don't know who you think you are, but I am not going to play some lame game with you!" Kaiba stated, his arms still confidentially crossed across his chest.

"I'm afraid you don't have a choice!"

As Bakura uttered the last word, a hole began to emerge from the floor not more than ten meters behind Bakura on top of a small hill of stairs. Slowly, a metallic cross was beginning to rise from the black hole. Soon, the cross was standing proudly. On the cross, a familiar figure was tied up, his arms and fingers spread.

"Is this some kind of a sick joke?" Kaiba asked and cocked his head to the side.

"This is no joke, my friend," the white haired host said and pointed at the large cross where a frightened boy opened his mouth to speak, but he was silenced. From behind the cross, another tall male crept forward, seemingly resting on the cross.

"May I introduce my partner in crime, Marik!" Bakura smiled and gestured towards the blond male with a purple rope hanging down his back. "The hangman!"

Marik.. he had definitely seen that man before. Blond hair.. a crazy look in his eyes. There was no doubt. And Bakura, who had somehow convinced him to go to Egypt. He had hoped to never see those two again.

Again, the crowd started to make noise. This seemed more like a twisted dream to kaiba than anything else. What was he doing before he fell asleep? He shouldn't have worked so hard; now he had to pay the price and endure whatever weird setting his mind had set up for him.

"Okay, Kaiba. This is no ordinary game. This is something we like to call 'shadow games', and they work a bit differently from what you are use to. I know you like to play games. I'm sure you will love this one!"  
Bakura started to explain while Kaiba listened with barely half an ear. He wasn't interested in twisted imaginary games. "If you win, you will get the prize.. Freedom. But should you lose, you will live in the shadows for eternity."

"Freedom.. prize.. shadows, eternity. I get it," Kaiba repeated absentmindedly. "But when can I come home?"

"When you win the game.. I just said that," Bakura spoke, annoyed.

"No, you said freedom. That's not the same."

Bakura's breathing slowed down as he tried to seem calm. "It's the same thing here."

"Okay, I just wanted to clear that up."

Kaiba placed his hands on his hips and let out a heavy sigh. He could just as well play along if it could get him home sooner. There was nothing he could do about it anyway.

"So how do I win this game?"

"This is a game of logic. My hangman knows a little about anatomy, and he is good with a knife."  
Up by the cross, Marik was caressing the boy's cheek with his sharp blade. "Would you care to explain, Marik?"

Marik smiled and turned his attention to Bakura. "Of course I will!" he said and turned his gaze towards the sceptical Kaiba. "I can separate your friend into ten nice pieces, depending on your answer. I can do it painfully and I can do it quick. Your every word is my command."

"So if I answer the questions wrong, you will chop a piece of him off?" Kaiba asked interested. This might be fun after all. Up on the cross, the boy began struggling, but to no use. A cloth had been put in his mouth violently to prevent him from speaking.

"Pretty much, yes."

"But when you play 'hangman', you usually add limbs to the figure. You don't cut them off.." Kaiba wondered. He knew how to annoy people. It was his job after all.. Annoying important people to some extend.

"BUT WE'RE NOT IN YOUR WORLD!" Bakura shouted, hoping to get to Kaiba somehow. To make him understand, that normal rules don't apply to shadow games.

"Sorry, I just wanted to say that your concept is wrong."

A smug smile appeared on Marik's face as he threw the knife into the right hand.  
"You shouldn't say things like that, Kaiba," he said and licked the knife slowly, touching the edge of the blade with his tongue. Soon, a little drop of blood trailed down his chin.

"Shall we start?" Bakura asked and raised his eyebrows slightly. "There are no more rules.. I think."

"I've always wanted to do something like this to him. Since I know this isn't real, I can just as well enjoy it," Kaiba said with satisfaction in his voice. "Lets start this sick game!"

The boy tried his best to get loose, but it was imposible with Marik by his side. he was too strong for the weak boy to handle.

"Remember, this is pure logic! The riddles will test your strength under pressure," Bakura said and continued, "Here is the first riddle. We'll start with the easy ones. You should be able to answer them."

Several letters, pieces of text, punktuations and signs began forming words and sentences right before him. There was no wall, there was only air. It was physically impossible.

**1. A boy was at a carnival and went to a booth where a man said to the boy, ''If I write your exact weight on this piece of paper then you have to give me $50, but if I can't, I will pay you $50.'' The boy looked around and saw no scale so he agrees, thinking no matter what the carny writes he'll just say he weighs more or less. In the end the boy ended up paying the man $50. How did the man win the bet? **

Kaiba didn't react to the riddle he had been given. It was easy.

"Hmmmm.. Should I give you the answer? Or should I watch my _friend _squirm?" Kaiba thought out loud.

"If I were you, I would answer correctly," Bakura said, wondering if Kaiba even wanted to save his friend.

"Okay, but only so I wont look dumb. The man wrote 'your exact weight' on the paper.. Give me another one!"

**2. If there are three corpses, and you take one away, how many do you have?"**

"Why would I take a corpse?" Kaiba asked, a bit disgusted.

"Take a corpse!" Bakura exclaimed, getting increasingly annoyed.

"But I would rather take money."

While Marik had placed himself lying on the floor, the boy managed to spit the cloth out. Marik saw it perfectly well, but he didn't do anything. Usually their guests are frightened and unable to answer when they see a friend of them suffer, and the pressure gets to them quite quickly. They certainly don't have the guts to correct Bakura.

"TAKE THE CORPSES!!" Bakura shouted, his hair flying around in circles as he got more angry.

"Okay, I will take the corpses then! Rela-.."

Suddenly, another voice was heard clearly throughout the room. The voice was shaking, frightened.. scared to death.

"Kaiba!" the boy screamed. "You don't know what they are capable of!"

Kaiba growled inwardly and turned to look at where the sound had come from. "Yuugi! Who has said you could speak? I can handle this!"

"No you can't! You can't possibly win! This is a shadow game; no one wins but them!"

"You say I can't win? For your information, I have received several awards for my sense of logic concerning games!"

Bakura had to intervene as he felt the situation getting out of control. "Maybe, but do you have to live in excruciating pain in the shadows if you lose a game of chess?"

Kaiba thought about his answer for a minute or two. "Well yeah! The matches are on national television! If I lose, my ego will be hit by a fatal heart-attack! I wouldn't ever be able to show myself in public again!"

Marik sighed from where he was laying. This sure was a show he wouldn't forget.  
"Just answer the damn question, will you?" he growled.

"Okay, I will have **one **corpse.. the one I took of course!" Kaiba said nonchalantly. "Please give me something with a little more thought in it. I wouldn't want to look stupid."

**3. ****When the day after tomorrow is yesterday, today will be as far from Wednesday as today was from Wednesday when the day before yesterday was tomorrow. What is the day after this day?**

"Finally something where I have to think a little," Kaiba thought to himself and started finding possibilities. It was harder than it looked, and even though he could take one day at a time and see if it fitted the description, there were a lot of things that could distract him. A lot of new information could throw him off the track if he let it do so. It was easy to get lost.

"We're waiting," Bakura smirked and several members of the audience started whispering.

"Thursday.. The day after must have been Thursday."

Bakura looked surprised.. annoyed. He bit his lower lip in frustration and looked up at Marik, who two looked completely clueless.

"I.. I guess we will have to find something even harder for you," he sighed, disappointed about not being able to cut some flesh.

"Way to go, Kaiba!" Yuugi suddenly cheered happily. He had gotten his faith back by seeing Kaiba's intellect in action. When there before was nothing but sadness, frustration and despair, a little glimpse of home emerged from the shadows. "I believe in you!"

Kaiba growled slightly by the sound of the childish and happy voice. Marik shrugged and started to polish the knife to make the time pass by.

"So.. give me another one," Kaiba asked Bakura, who too had been puzzled by Yuugi's words. Maybe the boy had been given some hope, but he better hold on to it, because from here on, it's only going to get worse.

**4. This is an unusual paragraph. I'm curious how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it? It looks so plain you would think nothing was wrong with it! In fact, nothing is wrong with it! It is unusual though. Study it, and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you might find out! **

He looked at it intensively for a whole ten minutes. His eyes were flickering from side to side, checking out every detail. Every single word was spelled correctly, every single sentence was grammatically perfect. Every punctuation was correct to the bone.

"I.. I.." he studdered, his mouth slightly open. What was wrong with it? Was there something wrong with it anyway? What should he even look for?

Bakura's eyes lit up with a fire of surprise and new-found hope.

"I was sure you would find the answer to this one.. It seems like we can finally chop something off, Marik!" he called and Marik licked his lips hungrily. Yuugi struggled even more, but with Marik's face mere inches away from his own, that fight was quickly lost.

"Why do you do this?!" he screamed and Marik cocked his head to the side, while his knife was layed on Yuugi's sensitive neck.

"For fun's sake," he answered and removed the cold blade.

"You're sick! Do something about it, Kaiba!"

Kaiba looked confused for a moment, but then it disappeared. Instead, a confident and cocky smile appeared on his face. "What can I do? This is only a dream anyway. When I wake up again, thinking that you are dead because of me, I will only be disappointed to find out that you're _not_! This is only a dream! Who cares if you lose a finger or two?"

"I care!" Yuugi exclaimed, angrily. "This is real, Kaiba! All of this is real!"

Marik shrugged and looked at the silent Bakura for verification.

"You know, Kaiba? The stupid boy is right. You know damn well who we are and what we are capable of!" Marik said cockily while fumbling absentmindedly with the sharp tool in his hands.

"Yeah, in your dreams!" Kaiba exclaimed but corrected himself suddenly. "I mean.. Yeah in _my _dreams!"

"This isn't a dream, Kaiba! Trust me!"

Bakura shook his head slowly while mumbling something under his breath. Kaiba would never believe them if they had told it anyway. He was way too much of a sceptic. He would never open his eyes to another world than his own. He had his own rules, rules of life. And the 'shadow game' rule hadn't been signed by the queen yet, and therefore he was unwilling to accept the fact that he and Yuugi were in greater danger than he could ever imagine.

"You know, Kaiba? I can sense that you don't know the answer to the riddle?" Bakura mocked him and several people from the audience started making noise.

"It's an impossible riddle! What am I supposed to look for?" Kaiba defended himself, but no mercy was shown.

Kaiba couldn't think of an answer. For the first time in a long time, he had nothing smart to say. "I.. I.. I don't know," he admitted. He felt it inside. His ego had took a harsh blow, and he didn't know if he could ever heal it. Something inside him had been taken away from him. His superiority.

"Kaiba.." Yuugi pleaded, his eyes starting to water slightly. "Don't let them fool you. It doesn't matter if I get hurt, but you must know that this is no joke."

Marik put on a smug smile as he spoke, "What if I tell you that we can make a deal?"

"What kind of deal?" Kaiba asked, suspicious. He did after all never let his guard down, no matter what.

"Instead of sending you to the shadow realm just yet.. how about paying a small prize to stay here?" he said with a hoarse voice, barely hear able in the empty room. "How about paying _one_ finger. Two fingers top! Then we will skip the question."

Bakura turned to look at the now seemingly calm Kaiba standing in front of him. "Yeah, how about that?" he whispered. "No one will ever know, and we want you to stay.."

"Your audience will know.. Marik asked me directly; of course they heard the deal," he whispered so only Bakura was able to hear.

Bakuka chuckled slightly. "No. They can't hear us right now. Only you.. and Yuugi can hear us. It's a special ability we have embraced. Something you learn over time. It is after all about five years since we last encountered."

Kaiba sighed. He didn't need help in dreams! It was his own dream for God's sake!

"Kaiba! Do it! If it can get the both of us out.." Yuugi pleaded, a small tear trailing down his cheek. "Then it's worth it!"

Kaiba nodded to himself and turned his piercing gaze towards the pale Bakura. "I'll take it."

"Consider it a life-line of the greater kind."

Bakura moved his lips, but no sound escaped. Still, Kaiba heard the words perfectly. Bakura gave him the right answer and Kaiba showed his teeth in annoyance. This wasn't what he had expected when he had received the riddle.

"This isn't fair!" Kaiba shouted, looking furious. "How was I supposed to know that!?"

Marik growled. "Just say the answer, damn it! You know the audience can hear you when you scream like that?"

"Women scream... men shout, thank you! The answer is.." he sighed. "The sentences contain no 'e'."

The audience applauded sarcastically. He knew the answer again. The most lame show they had ever been to, that's for sure.

"And once again the mighty CEO found the answer!" Bakura shouted to the audience. "But because you were so slow.. we will claim.. ONE finger!"

The audience suddenly stood up, applauding and shouting.. screaming and stomping. Surely they were excited about finally seeing the thin red substance that rested inside the living. No blood was running through the bodies in which the old souls had inhabited.

Yuugi's breathing increased rapidly, and his eyes were radiating fear. Marik came closer, closing the gap between them more and more until their lips _almost_ touched.

"So.. which finger?" he teased the frightened boy, who tried his best to control his breathing. He wasn't succeeding, and Marik enjoyed every second of it.  
Kaiba didn't move an inch. While Kaiba didn't look, Bakura peeked a glance at him. His eyes showed the cold stone heart that lied within him. How come he didn't care at all? What was wrong with that guy? Bakura and Marik had never experienced anything like that before. Ever!  
Usually people were hysterical, out of control! Ever since Marik and Bakura had left the real world to plan their deeds, they hadn't heard from any of the others. Kaiba hadn't changed the slightest. They knew he was cold and sceptical, but? Even though Yuugi was his nemesis, he still shouldn't allow.. maybe this would get him back on track!

The dull side of the knife caressed Yuugi's thin arm and continued down towards his spread fingers. With much force, Marik swung the knife back and dug the blade right into Yuugi's right little finger. Because of Marik's imprecision, the silvery blade tore half Yuugi's ring-finger open too. A painful, horrific scream filled the air as blood started to pour from the obviously open wound. The red flesh that once was attached to his hand; a part of him, dropped silently down on the floor.

Yuugi's face was twisted in pain. A small 'thud' was heard as the finger hit the ground. It was barely hearable, in fact it should be impossible to hear over the painful cry of the hurt boy. Still, Kaiba heard it loud and clear. It was as if the screaming got weaker, it melted into the background. The audience started cheering louder and louder, but soon they too faded into faint voices.

He saw Marik retreating into the surrounding darkness in his mind, the sick smile plastered onto his face. All Kaiba saw was Yuugi. The pain, the blood.. The agony carved in the flawless young face. He had never felt like that, he actually felt physically sick. The nausea started to kick in, his breathing fastened. All he saw was the look on the boy's face. Courage.. forgiveness.. It felt so real. Never had a dream felt so real on his body, never had he started to get tics and small cramps in his dreams.

"It's okay, Kaiba. It's okay," Yuugi coughed, while the stream of blood continued to pour onto the crystal clean, beautiful white floor.

"No.. It's not okay, Yuugi."


End file.
